Posts Tagged ‘sardinia’

Check out the video from the 3rd event of Italy’s Alcatel J/70 Cup for a slightly long but beautifully produced story of sportboat racing in Sardinia. More from our old friend and Italian J/70 Class Prez Vittorio:

Quite frankly, we had a truly fantastic week-end with great racing conditions, outstanding hospitality by the Yacht Club Costa Smeralda (with a social event every night!), and lots of beachside fun for our accompanying friends and families. It was probably the best event organised by the J/70 ITALIAN CLASS so far (results here).

The week-end was also a live test for next year’s J/70 Worlds (Sept 12-16, 2017). We are already working to prepare another great event for you (all of the above plus simplified logistics, group discounts on ferry boat transportation, hotels, food and entertainment). We will present the full program of next year’s event during the Italian Night that we plan to host at the St. Francis Yacht Club in September during the 2016 J/70 Worlds in San Francisco. You are already invited to participate!

We are confident to have all the ingredients to host a great event next year which will be key in further growing the J/70 Class in the Med. CAN’T MISS PORTO CERVO 2017 !

Jason Carroll’s 5-year journey to win the Melges 32 World Championship is over, and a huge congratulations to the party-loving anarchists aboard the good ship Argo on a brilliant performance in the world’s toughest owner/driver fleet. We’ll have a more detailed report from one of the war horses aboard later this week, but one thing is for certain in the M32 Class – if you want to win a Worlds, you start with Morgan Reeser as your coach. Joy Dunigan photo with a bit of freaky editing by Clean to make it a little more like the movie poster the shot brings to mind. More shots here, and check out more great work from Argo mastman Petey Crawford starting tomorrow as live video producer (and shooter/editor/a dozen other jobs) at the Little Cup.

UPDATE: Coach Reeser lays out his ‘roadmap to success’ and a word or two about the Argo program, from somewhere over the Atlantic in a very large non-commercial jet. Rough life, Morg!

The Argo Worlds was a pleasure to be involved with as they deserved a World Championship in ’11 and ’12! I’m so thrilled that they go it this time. They are a great team that needed to realize how good they were and what was required win a Worlds.

Goals:

1) Average first mark rounding (top 30%)

2) Always passing boats after mark 1.

3) Save your drop race for the final fleet race

Team Argo had more fun than anyone else at the event (ie. they did not change what they normally did just because it was the Worlds!)

A great team, a great class, and a great boat to sail with so many other fantastic owners and their teams.

Update: Argo (fuck yourself) has taken a nice little 6 point lead after 4 races…

Richard Goransson’s Inga From Sweden is off to a good start at the Melges 32 Worlds even if the week isn’t. A nasty Mistral has seen two of the first four days shortened or cancelled with winds recorded up to 74 knots. Below is the report from Inga trimmer Richard Mason’s report after a single race yesterday, and the video is above. UPDATE: Argo leads after three more races today…latest results here and you can watch the Worlds streaming live on the Melges website here.

With no racing yesterday the pressure was on to get racing underway today. The forecast was for the breeze to start the day at 25knots plus and drop from there. Racing got underway on time at 11.00, with the wind gusting up to 30 knots.

The first race was a survival test. Just keep it cool and don’t make the mistakes. Race one proved to be a big payoff for Helly Hansen Inga from Sweden, for the time we have spent on the water over the past year getting to grips with this tricky, overpowered boat.

The first race in the 2013 saw us starting at the pin with Team Argo winning the start a half boatlength to weather. A long port tack in building breeze saw us on the left side of the track. We were third around the first top mark, with it all on for the run. We managed to survive a couple of on-the-edge gybes to make it around the bottom mark in 2nd hot on the tail of Bombarda Racing. Looking back upwind at the fleet there were some major wipeouts, with quite a bit of damage to the fleet on the first run.

Bombarda Racing lead up the second beat showing some serious speed on the wind, and led around the top mark with us about 20 seconds back. A wild second run followed, and the deciding maneuver for the race was the final gybe, just 200 meters from the finish. Bombarda missed theirs while we thankfully nailed ours, and that was the race.

So a great start for the Helly Hansen Inga form Sweden team. An attempt was made at a second race, but the breeze was gusting over 34 knots, which saw the fleet return to the dock, postponing racing for the day. It is going to be a long 3 days! The pressure is on to keep the consistency in the results required to stay at the top of this fantastic fleet.